The priest in charge of Confession at Milan cathedral says there has been a growing “demand” for absolution and Communion

Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, has begun to change attitudes to Communion in the archdiocese of Milan, according to a senior official.

In an article for the Milan archdiocese website, Monsignor Fausto Gilardi, who is in charge of Confession at Milan Cathedral, says that there has been a growing “demand” in the diocese from the divorced and remarried for absolution and Communion.

Mgr Gilardi’s piece claims that some priests have changed their practice. He says that some have “opened a ‘teller’s window’ for consultations”.

Mgr Gilardi comments that this seems to contradict Amoris Laetitia’s warning against “the grave danger of misunderstandings, such as the notion that any priest can quickly grant ‘exceptions’”.

The article says that other priests have asked divorced and remarried people to enter a pastoral process, but he does not specify whether Communion is a possible goal.

Mgr Gilardi writes that in the last few days, the divorced and remarried have mostly not been “disappointed” by the invitation to a “journey”.

He also says that pastors “aren’t called to impose a norm, but to lift up the value expressed through that norm’”.